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Chapter 28: Colt

Chapter 28: Colt

For seven hours, we had deliberated where my father and the dragons would be hiding. The manor was among the last places we checked, simply because it seemed too obvious that they would go back there, but around 4 PM, the recon team confirmed the heavy presence of wolves and dragons. Then we conceived a new plan, and at the risk of rushing in unprepared, we took an hour to thoroughly consider our approach and every possible outcome. Part of our team returned to the mine, confirming that Lothair was still there. We had given his daughter to Everett and Aislin’s mothers to watch over. Then by 7 PM, we were finally ready to go to the manor, but knowing that we were approaching nightfall, we chose to wait until the Lycan transformations were underway. We would strike when their bodies were shifting—when they were most vulnerable. And the entire time, I was in so much agony I could barely think.

Kiara was still alive. I would have sensed it if she died. But she was still alive and suffering—most likely at the hand of my father—and I felt it everywhere he made her hurt. In my fingernails, in my toes, in my ear. Each pang of pain made me hate my father even worse. My strength drained from me the longer it went on, but I insisted that I wanted to be part of the raid. Billie wanted to stand beside me too. Together, we were going to slay David. I fought back the dizzying anguish and waited among the trees, watching from afar as my father’s body twisted and jerked, sprouting black hair across a grotesque human-beast anatomy.

We charged forward, firing into the glass walls of the atrium. I never would have suspected this room my father banned us from entering would become the site of his sacrilege. As the glass shattered, the other shifters in the room leaped into action while the five recipients of the ritual crumbled to the ground in the heat of transformation. Nearby was Kiara, hopelessly bound by ropes. “Kiara!” I called for her. My packmates and the dragons met us head-on, and in an instant, the scene devolved into chaos.

As soon as I was close enough, I threw a dart at one of the dragons writhing on the ground. I recognized the fanged tattoo on his arm—Kipling. Miraculously, the dart stuck in his chest, and Kipling gasped, a guttural and fiendish noise welling out of him. Before I could fling another dart, one of my packmates lunged at me, knocking me to the ground. My two darts flew out of my pocket and scattered as I grappled with my packmate in human form. She wasn’t anyone I spoke to regularly, a younger girl who had been dragged into the fray, probably coerced into serving David’s cruel goals by her parents who believed in him. I didn’t want to hurt this girl. Throwing her off of me, I left her for the Mythguard to deal with while I gathered my two darts and pushed toward the atrium. Glass crunched under my sneakers. I launched into the room through the broken window and faced off against another packmate, an older man. He punched me in the jaw, and I kicked his knee, dropping him to the floor.

“What are you doing, Colt?” growled my packmate. “You should be fighting alongside us, not against us!”

I panted, clutching his shirt and forcing him to the ground. “This is wrong, and you know it!”

“It’s the only choice I have!”

“No! You always have another choice. When I let you go, just get up and run. Get out of here. Leave this behind, or the Mythguard will exterminate you too!” I warned.

My packmate stared up at me, but all around us, the Mythguard were tranquilizing or, if necessary, killing those who fought against us. Watching our packmates and the dragons fall was enough to convince him to give up. When I let him go, he scrambled to his feet and fled.

The shifters, once standing between my fated mate and me, were all engrossed in battle, protecting David and the other dragons. Kiara sat unmonitored, trying desperately to free herself from the ropes. When my eyes landed on her, my heart leaped with relief, then subsequent compassion at the blood smeared across her. I ran to her side, clutching her arms. She flinched away from me at first, only to meet my gaze with a gasp. “Colt!”

“Kiara,” I repeated her name, embracing her. My heart ached to be reunited with her, to feel her skin against mine, to heal her from all she had endured. In the midst of the battle, I kissed her cheek and pulled back, looking her over. “I’m going to get you out of this.”

“Please hurry,” she said weakly.

We were both struggling against the pain. That was the downside of the fated mate bond—when one of us was hurt, both of us were. Frantically scanning the scene, I saw the bloodied silver knife on the table, grabbed it, and severed the ropes around Kiara. She unfurled onto the floor, trying to support herself now that her limbs were freed. As I reached to help her up, a long whip-like tail lashed against my leg and knocked me down.

I turned onto my back to see a dragon ready to lunge. Not a Lycan. One of the other dragons had shifted into its beast form. As the dragon leaped at me, I braced a hand against its throat, barely stopping its snapping teeth from raking my face. My heart hammered as I plunged a dart into the side of its neck. The dragon shrieked and reeled back, the balsam resin already coursing through its veins, poisoning the monster. I crawled out from underneath it and grabbed Kiara’s hand. My first priority was to get her out of here, but as I searched for someone to help her escape, I found all of my companions enveloped in combat. Billie and Aislin were back-to-back, fighting against a dragon. Everett was blocking punches from one of my packmates. Gavin and another Mythguard human were tackling one of the dragon Lycans. I held Kiara close to me, deciding that I would pull her out of the fray myself. “Stay close, Kiara. I’ll get you to safety,” I promised, searching for her lilac eyes again.

The moment I made eye contact with her, a body launched at Kiara, ripping her right out of my arms.

“Kiara!” I shouted, stunned.

The massive creature that had taken her stood up straight, twisting around to stare back at me. Kiara was tucked under its long, malformed arm, its neck arched and teeth bared out of a gnarled maw. Black fur covered his body, and lightning-blue eyes pierced me to my very soul, reminding me of myself. The hulking beast looked neither human nor lupine but a gruesome combination of both, fur missing in patches, muscles and veins bulging. Even in this form, I recognized him—my father.

“No!” I lunged at him. “Let her go!”

The hideous beast roared, evading me with ease. I landed on the ground and rolled to my feet, stumbling after them as my father carried Kiara out of the atrium and toward the trees. One of the dragon Lycans intercepted me, its deformed draconic posture writhing with mindless violence. I reached for my last dart, only to find it missing. In a flare of panic, I stared at the gaping jaws of my fate looming over me, then winced as gunshots rang in the air. Two bullets punctured the Lycan’s skull, and it collapsed.

“David has Kiara,” I shouted at anyone that would listen. “He’s heading that way. We have to go after him!”

The battle was already thinning out. Half of our Mythguard operatives were dead or unconscious. Most of my packmates were either dead, unconscious, or had run away, as well as the dragons. As the remaining warriors realized how little there was to fight for, the Dalesbloom and Inkscale shifters fled while we all turned our attention to the direction David had gone.

I didn’t know where he intended to take her, only that I would follow Kiara to the ends of the Earth.

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